Hart Crane (1899-1932) was an American poet. Finding both inspiration and provocation in the poetry of T. S. Eliot (Crane’s The Bridge was allegedly written directly in response to Eliot’s The Wasteland), Crane wrote poetry that was traditional in form, difficult and often archaic in language, and which sought to express something more than the ironic despair that Crane found in Eliot’s poetry. Though frequently condemned as being difficult beyond comprehension, Crane has proved in the long run to be one of the most influential poets of his generation.

Crane was gay, and, much like his contemporaries (and a significant number of poets and artists throughout the ages), suffered from depression and a drinking problem. Although he experienced some success as a writer in the early and mid 1920’s, his depression and drinking won out, as did his belief that one could not be happy as a homosexual, and in 1932 he committed suicide by jumping off a steamship into the Gulf of Mexico. (Annotated biography of Hart Crane courtesy of Wikipedia.org, with edits.)

Editor’s Note: What I love about this poem is that it invites the reader to inhabit the world from which the poem comes in order to fully appreciate the poem itself. First, it is helpful to know that the National Winter Garden was a famous New York burlesque club in the 1910’s through the 1930’s. Thus, on its face this poem appears to be a fairly straightforward poem about a burlesque show. Then re-read it knowing about the conflicted sexual existence of the poet and you’ll start to see the layers underneath – the poet’s conflicted relationship with the club, with the dancers, and with the sexuality of the experience. Try a further reading and you may find that the poem is actually an exploration of the poet’s views on heterosexual intercourse itself, with lines like “We flee her spasm through a fleshless door.” For me, the more I learn about the world from which the poem was created, the richer and deeper the poem becomes.

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About Sivan Butler-Rotholz

Sivan is the Contributing Editor of the Saturday Poetry Series on As It Ought To Be and holds an MFA from Brooklyn College. She is a professor, writer, editor, comic artist, and attorney emerita. She is also the founder of Reviving Herstory. Sivan welcomes feedback, poetry submissions, and solicitations of her writing via email at sivan.sf [at] gmail [dot] com.